How Romanian criminals terrorise our streets

BRITAIN has been hit by a ­Romanian crimewave with the equivalent of 15 arrests a day by one police force alone.

The crime statistics undermine reassurances from Romanian officials that the UK has nothing to fear

Shock figures show that the ­Metropolitan Police made 27,725 ­arrests over the past five years for offences including rape and ­murder. This is despite just 68,000 ­Romanians living here at present – a figure set to soar when Britain has to open its borders next January under an EU directive.

The crime statistics undermine reassurances from Romanian officials that the UK has nothing to fear from the lowering of border controls.

Tory MP Priti Patel said: “These figures show why, with 29 million Romanians and Bulgarians gaining unrestricted access to the UK, more needs to be done to control immig­ration and to safeguard the British public from foreign criminals.

“The message must be that if you commit a crime you will be deported without ­hesitation.”

Responding to a Freedom of Information request, the Met Police revealed that Romanians are second only to Polish migrants for arrests since 2008.

However, although Poles topped the list with almost 35,000 arrests, there are almost 600,000 of them living in the UK.

Curbs on Romanians and Bulgarians coming to Britain without jobs have been in place since the two former Eastern bloc countries joined the European Union in 2007.

But these restrictions must be lifted at the end of this year under EU law.

Prime Minister David Cameron has refused to give any estimate of the ­numbers expected to arrive here, but campaign group MigrationWatch has put the figure at 50,000 a year for five years.

Its chief, Sir Andrew Green, said yesterday: “It is a matter of real concern that there should be such a substantial degree of criminality among those Romanians who have already come to Britain despite the treaty limitations on their right to work.”

Euro MP Gerard Batten said: “This is what an open-door immigration policy delivers. Not just the hardworking and decent migrants we might want, but a complete inability to protect ourselves from foreign criminals.

“If this many criminals have arrived already what will it be like when the final restrictions are removed? The Government should take action to control immigration and tell the EU where to get off.

“If our own Government cannot protect its own people against the world’s criminals what use is it?”

Tory MP Priti Patel said more needs to be done to control immig­ration

It is a matter of real concern that there should be such a substantial degree of criminality among those Romanians who have already come to Britain despite the treaty limitations on their right to work

MigrationWatch chief Sir Andrew Green

The Met’s figures show the 27,725 arrests of ­Romanian suspects were in connection with 142 rapes, 10 murders, 666 sex crimes, 303 robberies, 1,370 burglaries and 2,902 offences of violence.

The 34,905 arrests in London among Polish citizens in London were for suspected involvement in 84 murders, 129 rapes, 866 sex assaults, 480 robberies, 2,094 burglaries and nearly 7,500 violent crimes.

Lithuania was in third place on the list with more than 18,500 arrests, followed by Nigeria on 15,600, India with 15,200 and Jamaica with 14,072.

Data recently showed the number of Romanians in UK jails had grown by nearly 40 per cent from 454 in September 2011 to 624 last year.

British taxpayers are already paying more than £100million a year to fund an estimated 2,400 Eastern Europeans ­currently in our jails, at a rate of £42,000 per prisoner.

Fraudsters from Romania, a former hardline Communist state, are responsible for 92 per cent of all crime at cashpoints in Britain, according to police.

In one of the most notorious cases, ­criminal ­Gheorge Banu stole £643,000 from customers accounts after obtaining their security details.

The Met Police in London deal with around half of all crime committed in Britain by foreign citizens.

The problem is so bad Scotland Yard has set up Operation Nexus to tackle the issue. It is bidding for EU funding to recruit overseas investigators.